


The Cat's Out Of The Bag (About Rhett on Cats and Community College)

by woollen_pharaohs



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: AU, Community College, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Pets, and i mean ULTRA fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 06:07:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13358115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woollen_pharaohs/pseuds/woollen_pharaohs
Summary: The one where Rhett and Link go to community college and are forced to take care of a cat. Yeah, it's that fic.





	The Cat's Out Of The Bag (About Rhett on Cats and Community College)

**Author's Note:**

> So i'm a bit late and i don't actually know if this has been done already or not but i thought it might be cute if we had a community college AU featuring Cats and well, here we are. Be warned for possible cuteness (?) and possible amusing banter (?) because tbh, i wasn't gonna post it. hope you guys like it anyway????

Instead of going to NC State to study Engineering like his brother, Rhett decides he wants to go to film school with Link. Rhett’s father is okay with him not pursuing basketball, but he isn’t willing to pay for any kind of education unless it’s more ‘practical’. Rhett’s plan B becomes reality when he and Link begin their studies at the Living Arts College, studying a short 2 year course for filmmaking.

They both think they would have at least a year of studying film theory before they get to make their first school graded short film, but with their course running half as short as ‘regular’ degrees, the theory and practical skills are packed in right from the start. It’s exciting to be able to make a short film for their first assignment of community college, but it’s also totally daunting. Of course they have loads of ideas for what they want to film, but there are requirements for the assignment and they  _ must _ do well. They’re here taking on the opportunity to making something big together, and for that reason, they won’t  _ allow _ themselves to perform poorly. Plus, this first film of theirs has to be good because they only have so much time in this institution to learn all that they can.

Link puts in far more extra hours of study than Rhett does. Goes the extra mile and borrows books from the library to study after classes each day. Link’s pressure on himself is unmatched. It makes the pressure Rhett’s Dad had put on him to pursue basketball look like nothing. And Rhett understands what’s at stake here, what’s at stake if they  _ fail community college _ , but he can’t just sit back and watch Link run himself into the ground. What he needs is a distraction.

 

*

 

They’re down by Falls Lake filming a short in the evening sun. Rhett can tell that Link is irritated from being out so long and delaying his study time, but Rhett insists on getting the shot right during what’s left of the Golden Hour. Better to work with more material than a handful of useless shots. 

Rhett films Link trudging through the woodland area that banks the lake. He ends the sequence with Link standing on the quiet shore of the lake where the water washes red leaves onto the damp soil.

“Perfect, now Link, just stand there looking wistfully at the lake,” Rhett instructs.

“Wistfully,” Link repeats to himself as he stares out at the water.

A soft breeze rustles through the overhanging branches. Rhett is able to capture Link’s hair wafting in the breeze, and zooms out to capture leaves floating down and landing artistically on the rippling water. If their teacher wants an art house short, they’re going to deliver the most pretentious one yet.

“Don’t lean over, brother, you’re overdoing it,” Rhett asks when Link starts to peer earnestly at the lake.

“There’s something out there,” Link says loudly, pointing at a dark object floating on the lake, “Do you see that?”

Rhett follows where Link is pointing with the camera and zooms in on the object. He can only make out something dark slowly coming in to the shore.

“It’s just some driftwood. Look back at the other side of the lake, I’ve gotta get that shot again.”

Link squats. “There’s something  _ on _ the wood… sh, sh, can you hear that?”

Rhett huffs, but he walks over to join Link on the shore. As he’s placing the camera bag down on the dirt, he can hear the gentle wash of the water. Then, as he stands up again with the camera strung around his neck, he can hear a distressed animal noise. He brings the viewfinder to his eye and finds the object in the lens. He zooms in, and this time he has to agree with Link. There  _ is _ something floating on top of the wood. It’s a small black cat.

The cat is standing on all fours screeching in fright, its tiny paws gripping onto the slippery driftwood each time a gentle wave rocks it. But due to the stillness of the water, it doesn’t look like the driftwood is going to waft any closer to the shore. Rhett laughs, and has half the heart to ignore the pitiful creature entirely. Except that Link starts to untie his shoelaces and rolls up his jeans and before Rhett can stop him, he’s wading through the water.

“Link? What are you doing?!” Rhett calls out.

“It’s gonna die out there!” Link replies, his arms swinging out as he pulls himself through the water.

Rhett wrinkles his nose, but he looks through the camera and films Link try to scoop the kitten off the precarious platform, only to be clawed at.

“Just leave it, man!”

Link goes against his advice and instead pinches the underside of the driftwood and starts pulling it and the cat to shore. Rhett captures the whole thing on camera, the distressed meows becoming more piercing the closer it gets to safer ground.

“Who would do this?!” Link asks, aghast.

Rhett zooms in on the cat’s wide, black eyes rimmed by a sliver of green. “It probably did it to itself, Link. Cats are stupid.”

The water splashes more the shallower it gets. Link says, “But look at it, it’s so  _ small _ ! It must only be a few weeks old.”

Suddenly, the kitten leaps off the driftwood and swims with ridiculous limb movements toward the shore. Link laughs, and then gasps in surprise when the kitten reaches the shore and immediately jumps straight into the camera bag – property of the Living Arts College.

“No!” Rhett snaps. He drops the camera and lets it swing on the strap around his neck as he tries to tip the cat out of the bag. The kitten claws onto the thick polyester fabric with dear life, it’s little back legs and tail flailing and dripping water onto the ground beneath.

“Rhett, stop that!” Link cries, paddling out of the water and snatching the bag out of Rhett’s hold.

Link holds the bag the right way up and holds it to his chest. Link gazes down at the cat and there’s a look on his face that Rhett can’t say he’s seen before. He’d liken it to a mother holding her newborn but the image just doesn’t make sense to him in the context of his best friend cradling a  _ cat _ . Then again, Link is far more fond of cats than he is.

Link slowly eases his hand into the bag and this time he is able to give the kitten a pet without receiving any scratches. Pleased, Link toes into his shoes and starts walking back through the path they had taken, leaving Rhett to follow. 

“We should take it to the pound,” Rhett says loudly.

“They’ll put him down!”

“Yeah, that’s the point.”

Link stops and turns around. “It’s a living thing, Rhett. It has a right to live.”

“Oh, I didn’t realise you were all about animal rights now.”

“Well, just look at it, Rhett,” Link opens the bag wider to show Rhett the kitten nestled inside. “Isn’t it kinda cute?”

“Uhh….” Rhett peers down at the tiny kitten which is curled up in the bag with its tail tucked between its legs. It looks up at him with soft green eyes and Rhett purposefully takes note that it isn’t adorable at all because the cat’s fur is still damp and it stinks of the lake and cats aren’t that great anyway. He clears his throat. “We’ve gotta let it roam free. Cats  _ thrive _ in the wild.”

“Hold on there, it’s just a baby!” Link says, pulling the bag back to his chest protectively. 

Rhett frowns. “Pretty sure we’re not allowed pets in the dorms.”

“I’m not gonna  _ keep  _ it, I’m just gonna nurse it until it’s old enough to look after itself,” Link says firmly.

He turns around quite pointedly and marches toward their car, the dry fall leaves crunching under his shoes. Rhett puts the cap over the lens and sighs.

This can only end badly. 

 

*

 

Rhett reads the same page in his textbook three times. He tries for a fourth time then stops, frustrated that he has to wait until Link gets back from wherever he is so that he can get back his keys to the video editing room. He’d left his keychain somewhere in their shared room and he suspects that, on one of Link’s cleaning sprees, his best friend has tucked it away somewhere without telling him. And with no keys to the video editing room, let alone his own dorm room, he has no choice but to sit around and wait.

He’s trying to study. He is. Except the kitten keeps finding a new way to precariously climb up onto his desk and annoy him, and he keeps having to scoop the demon off. No matter how adorably small it is, Rhett is assured that, amongst their incapacity to love, felines have no capacity to learn what ‘No’ means. If they had found a lost puppy stranded on that bit of driftwood, it would be an entirely different story. But no, it had been a kitten and Rhett can’t get a minute of study done even without the kitten trying to get on his desk. He keeps worrying about what the little creature is getting up to behind his back. What if it’s climbing the curtains or scaling the bookshelves or rearing up ready to scratch his eyes out??

Each time the kitten is suspiciously quiet, he turns around to see that the little thing has simply found a pile of textbooks to sit on or a sock to sleep on. Truthfully, the cat is far more docile than Rhett had expected from a stray. Perhaps the cats that he has known to misbehave in the past have merely done so due to childish aggravation. Still, he’s  _ worried _ about it even though he has a couple of hours of film to edit into a short and Link  _ still _ isn’t back yet. Maybe he could just ‘accidentally’ leave the door open and let nature have its way with the thing. But he would never do that, especially when having the cat around seems to be doing Link some good.

Link still studies a lot, but he’s no longer overdoing it. Instead, he’s using that time to care for the kitten and alright, that wasn’t Rhett’s plan with how a  _ distraction _ was going to go down. He was hoping he could distract Link with a sneaky handy, or a blow job or two, or a really good screw because that’s the kind of distraction they could  _ both _ use. 

Rhett tears his thoughts out of the gutter and stares down at his textbook. He hasn’t moved passed the first word on the first line when he hears a small meow and looks down to see the black fluff ball on the carpet beside him. He makes eye contact with it and it meows again.

“What? What do you want?”

Honestly it’s only a matter of time before another resident hears the meows and tells the Dean. The Dean will then either make them get rid of the cat or kick them out for violating student conduct. And that really scares Rhett. They both gave up so much to be here. He doesn’t want to have to give up his dream of studying film with his best friend because of a god damn  _ cat _ . 

The kitten blinks at Rhett, then its ears twitch and it moves away. Rhett turns his attention back to his textbook, then one word later, he hears keys turn in the door. He looks over his shoulder to see Link struggling with several bags in his arms. 

“Rhett! Where’s the cat?! Close the door!”

Link stumbles out of the way and Rhett, having no idea where the kitten went, races to the door and slams it shut before it can escape. The kitten jumps backward just before hitting the door and circles back to loop around Link’s feet.

“Geez, Rhett! That was a close one,” Link says as he dumps his haul on his bed. “We need to work something out so that he can’t get out.”

“How do you know it’s a he, have you  _ looked _ ?”

Link confirms with a nod. Rhett grimaces, then puts his hands on the end of Link’s bed frame and looks at what Link has bought. The kitten joins the inspection with Link’s help and begins pawing around on top of the blankets to sniff at various items. There’s a small bag of kitten food, a bag of kitty litter, a comb, claw cutters, a  _ harness _ (what, is he gonna  _ walk  _ the thing like a dog?) and a pack of little bottles with squeeze lid attachments, each pre-filled with milk.

Rhett covers his face with his hands and speaks through the heels of his palms. “This is too much.”

Link ignores him. “I went to the vet, and they suggested I get these milk thingies because he’s so young that he needs the nutrients he’s missing from his mother’s milk.”

“You’re taking this too far, Link,” Rhett says, “We’re not  _ allowed  _ to have pets.”

Link shakes his head. “Greg said that he kept a hamster in his room for 8 months and nobody cared.”

“A hamster is a whole lot different to a cat, although their incapacity to love their owners back is on par.”

Link looks at him. “You’re worried I’m gonna get attached.”

Rhett purses his lips. “I  _ know  _ you’re gonna get attached.”

Link reaches down to give the kitten a one-fingered scratch on its cheek. Tiny ears fan out as the kitten leans into the scratch. “I can’t promise that I won’t, but I’m gonna do my best to help him grow strong so that he can be adopted. The vet told me it was best to wait until he’s done nursing.”

“For how long?”

The kitten turns to lightly bite Link’s finger. “... They said if he can open his eyes then he’s two to three weeks old. He should only need nursing for four and a half weeks and then by six weeks he’ll be good to go.”

Rhett grips onto the bed frame. “Link. We’re gonna get kicked out if anyone finds out.”

“Well I already told Greg, but I don’t think he’s gonna be a tattletale.” Link then moves around the bed and puts a hand on Rhett’s arm to soften the tension in his muscles. Rhett straightens, his arms falling by his side when Link reaches up to give Rhett a kiss. 

Tentatively, Rhett kisses back. The kiss melts him, as soft and tender as their first ever. 

“If we be careful, we won’t be caught,” Link says quietly, “And we’re pretty good at that.”

Rhett closes his eyes as he wraps his arms around Link. Maybe introducing a cat into the mix isn’t going to be so bad if it’s relaxing Link enough to show him much missed affection.

“Just don’t give it a name.“

 

*

 

Sometimes it annoys him how much Link coos over the cat. So much attention gets funnelled into making sure the animal is eating right and groomed well and Rhett wants nothing to do with the litter training, yet he somehow gets roped into doing it. Disposing of the poops is gross enough, but the piss? The smell of that  _ lingers _ no matter how well Link cleans up afterwards. Still, there’s something rewarding about hearing the kitten hop into the litter and bury its business on its own for the first time. Pride swells within him and he wants to scoop the kitten up and squeeze it, but he holds himself back. 

“We should push the beds together,” Rhett says as he takes his eyes away from the kitten washing itself. 

“I can just come and lie next to you,” Link replies, tucking his book under his arm as he crosses the room. 

Rhett scoots back on his bed and wraps one arm around Link when he lies down. He hugs Link close to him and presses a kiss on top of his head. 

“Aside from getting to wake up next to you every day,” Rhett says, “If we push the beds together, we can put the litter box on the other side of the room and the smell will take just a little longer to reach us.”

“I like the romantic  _ and _ the practical aspect of this plan, but I think we’re not meant to rearrange the furniture… then again, no one seemed to care that we have been harbouring a kitten when we took it for a walk down the hall.”

Rhett laughs. “If I have learned anything about all of this--”

“--Is it that cats are cute?” Link asks.

“Woah, hey, first of all, cats are the worst. Second of all, what I’ve learnt is that community colleges don’t give a crap about what we do in our dorms. We could be running a business out of our rooms and they wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“Okay. You want to move the beds now?”

Rhett nuzzles his lips into Link’s hair again, breathing in the scent of his shampooed hair and takes in the feel of Link’s ass against his abdomen. He scoots down a little lower, the bed so short that he has to dangle one foot off the bed. He presses his lips against the nape of Link’s neck, watches goose bumps spread along Link’s skin in anticipation.

“Mmm… not now,” Rhett murmurs, then yelps when he feels the cat pawing at the underside of his foot. 

He tucks his foot back on the bed, but it means bending his knee which forces Link to sit up. Link reaches down and collects the kitten, then resettles on the limited amount of space on the bed with the kitten between them. Rhett has to bite his lip because Link looks so cute with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed as he coos at the cat. Without thinking, he pulls Link close and kisses him, his lips curving when he feels the slight tickle of the kitten’s little needled claws climbing his shirt. 

Rhett breaks from the kiss and peers down at the fluffball, trying to will the grin away. He’s not getting attached. He isn’t, because he doesn’t like cats. Cats are dumb. Cats can’t  _ love _ . 

He lifts the kitten off his shirt and holds the tiny thing above him.

“Look how small it is compared to my hands,” he says, “My hand, my  _ whole hand _ is bigger than the kitten.”

Link nestles into the crook of Rhett’s neck, his limbs entangled around the larger man’s body, the two of them weighing down the single mattress. “I knew you liked him.”

Rhett swallows his last words and lowers the cat to his chest. “Cats are evil,” he says, forced, “Black cats, in particular, have no souls.”

“I think he has a soul,” Link says, “He kinda reminds me of Patches.”

Rhett looks at him. “Didn’t you only have Patches for only a few days?”

“Yeah, but I remember what he was like.”

“And the worms?”

“And the worms…” Link says, grimacing. 

Rhett sits up, passing the kitten over to Link. 

“We should probably take it to a vet,” Link says quietly. 

Rhett watches Link pet the kitten, then carefully says, “The vet might take it in. How many weeks has it been?”

Link furrows his brows in response. 

“Well, good thing neither of us are attached to it. It’s gonna be easy passing it onto someone else, right?”

 

*

 

Rhett’s lying on the ground, waving his hand in front of the lamp so that the kitten chases the shadow across the carpet.

“Shouldn’t you be studying?” He asks Rhett, only  _ slightly _ jealous that Rhett is paying more attention to the cat than he’s paying to Link. 

“Once he’s fallen asleep, I’ll finish off the project.”

“Sure you aren’t keeping him up?”

“I’m tiring him out,” Rhett replies, “Cats are like children. They need to be tired out so that they can sleep.”

“I don’t think cats are like that,” Link says. 

“Yeah, I’m just making it happen sooner, you know? The sooner I tire him out, the sooner we can ignore him and go back to our regular lives,” Rhett says while the kitten flips over trying to attack the shadow. 

“Mmmhmm,” Link hums, but he smiles because he knew that Rhett would like the kitten if he was given the chance to care for one. 

 

*

 

They’re meant to take it to the vet, but somehow, perhaps purposefully, they never find the time. Besides, Link finds it rather endearing when he walks into their room and finds Rhett curled up on their bed with the cat asleep on his head. It’s cute, and he doesn’t get jealous at all, or,  _ maybe  _ he does get jealous, but only a little bit. 

He takes the warm formula bottle out of his pocket and kneels down on the floor so that he’s eye level with the kitten. He read in a book that you’re meant to feed kittens when they’re lying on their stomach, so he tries not to wake Rhett when he begins feeding the perfectly positioned kitten. 

“Don’t move,” Link whispers. 

Nevertheless, Rhett stirs the moment the kitten’s claws starts to knead into Rhett’s scalp. Link has to hold him down and hisses his instructions more firmly. 

“I’m almost done,” Link says.

He squeezes the last of the formula out of the bottle, then lifts the kitten onto his shoulder and taps the back gently to burp it. Rhett yawns, scratching his head where the kitten had clawed him. 

“It’s not an actual baby, Link.” 

Link ignores him. When he’s finished, he places the kitten in its warm little nest that they had made for him out of clothing, and then climbs on top of Rhett. 

Rhett looks up at him, perplexed, but his hands migrate to Link’s waist anyway. “Don’t you need to study?”

“Nope.”

Rhett quirks an eyebrow. “Is that cat taken care of?”

“Yep,” Link smirks. “There’s one thing that hasn’t been taken care of though…”

At that, he dips down and kisses a still sleepy man, Rhett’s lips sloppy and lazy but eager to take a kiss when he can. Link lays on top of Rhett and moves to press soft smooches over Rhett’s face. 

“You’re good with him,” Rhett says, enjoying the way Link’s eyelashes flutter on his skin. “One day, we’re going to have a big family.”

Link pauses. “Of cats?”

“Maybe,” Rhett laughs, “If we play our cards right.”

Rhett wraps his arms around Link and he thinks that moving to community college was probably the best thing they’d ever done. It means living together, studying together, studying the subjects they want to and living their lives they way they want to. And he supposes the kitten is just an extra bonus on the side. 

 

*

 

Owning a cat is totally different to what Rhett thought it would be. He sees that now. After owning one for almost two months, he knows that cats can be pretty responsive. They can even have  _ personalities _ . And this one, this cat that he still refuses to give a name to, is a cheeky little one for sure. It climbs the curtains and traps itself in nooks at heights that seem impossible for any creature unless it knows how to teleport. It has times where it won’t let you pat it or won’t take the bait of an enticing shoe lace wiggle, but what’s most interesting to Rhett is that it seems to have some sort of capacity to love.

It purrs when it gets itches on its cheeks and rubs against their ankles when they’re sitting at their desks or climbs up and nudges its little head on their hands until they take it into their laps. As the semester wears into the colder months, the cat becomes their heater. A little warm patch on their laps or on their backs or in Rhett’s hair, in some cases. It’s comforting. And maybe neither of them have forgotten that they’re not really meant to have a pet, but neither of them said anything. Plus, they forget how old a cat is meant to be for when it can be put up for adoption. No one seems to care that they have a pet anyway.

Except when someone does. 

 

*

 

They’re not sure who reported them to the Dean. It doesn’t matter who it was because what they did was against the student contract. They are forced to give up the kitten but they’re able to buy some time so that they can do it right - make sure that the right person gets the little kitten they raised together. 

With the help of some friends, they put up flyers around town. Luckily they find a nice family with a little girl who wants to adopt their kitten. Rhett and Link donate the cat toys and equipment to the family and letting go of the last toy mouse on the end of string is heartbreaking. It’s like losing a loved one, losing a  _ child _ . 

It takes them some time to get used to living without the kitten - which they find out is actually a girl. They have to get used to what the room smells like without kitty litter stinking up the place. Or how to not overlook strange noises in the night. Every so often, Rhett will see a pile of clothes in the room or a sock beneath their bed and think that it’s the cat. And he actually misses it. He supposes, in the end, cats aren’t so bad. 


End file.
